


Braise Them Next Time

by voxDei



Series: The Care and Keeping of Your Hellbender [2]
Category: Hellsing, Temeraire - Fandom
Genre: Dragon AU, Gen, Oneshot, Temeraire au, listen you gotta be patient his manners are rusty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 16:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8721361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxDei/pseuds/voxDei
Summary: Local twelve year old attempts to curb ancient dragon's maneating tendencies, no doubt saving him from certain bureaucratic doom. Ancient dragon exercises patience.





	

The near-universally understood problem with dragons is, as Integra soon learns, that they eat a lot.

But that’s putting it mildly.

It would be more accurate to say that dragons, especially heavyweights, are the recipients of almost more of the world’s production of meat than humans are. Most dragons would find a decent sized cow a filling meal, whereas the same animal would sustain a human family of four for a month at least, if properly butchered and preserved. In some parts of the world, far from bureaucratic England, the feeding of dragons is taken to a much more refined and sophisticated level than simply flinging livestock at them, raw and undressed, but, regrettably, these are not places Integra is likely to visit any time soon. The difficulty of supplying dragons is part of the reason warfare is so tricky and expensive in this day and age; supply trains are worth their weight in gold, and extraordinarily difficult to maintain in the face of a determined foe.

This tendency of voraciousness is also the reason that the beasts walk the delicate line between enemy and ally to humanity. For when unharnessed and uncivilized, let loose by a lack of human direction, feral dragons often take to raiding farms and villages for their supper. Or worse, passing over the sheep and pigs and deciding to make humans their dinner instead.

This is the long-winded explanation for why Integra wakes up the next morning to a sudden deficit of cows and, more alarmingly, cowherds. 

“…okay, explain to me again why you did this.”

Her new dragon tilts his gargantuan head, irritatingly catlike. “I was hungry.”

She grinds her teeth together. “Yes, and when one is hungry, one normally waits until mealtime, or at the very least requests food, instead of rampaging around eating things that are most certainly _not food_.” 

“I disagree.” His voice is a low rumble, and she can see out of the corner of her eye the house staff at the windows facing them, not quite cowering when he speaks, but doing something very similar. “Food is what nourishes and tastes good; those people certainly filled both requirements.”

“Yes but—” She gestures, abortively. “People are not for eating!”

“You did not seem to mind when I ate the scum trying to do you harm yesterday.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, forcing out a frustrated breath. “Exceptional circumstances. I would have killed them anyway, for their crimes. But those boys were harmless, and part of my staff!”

He swivels one enormous eye towards the clusters of retainers at the windows, and a few of them vanish away from the glass, fleeing that gaze. “These people are yours?”

No, not exactly, but… “I pay their salaries, and am responsible for their wellbeing.” Her father had impressed upon her the importance of maintaining a good house staff, and how to cultivate the kind of loyalty she would require. This now involved ensuring that her new dragon would not gut the mansion chasing after a meal of maids and stablemen.

Alucard’s gigantic head dips slightly. “Then I have indeed wronged you, my captain. I ought not to have stolen your people for myself without permission.” His giant velvety nose nudges against her arm, ivory teeth inches away. “Next time, I will wait for your orders, Master.” 

She doesn’t know what flabbergasts her more, the fact that he accepted so readily that her household was off limits if only because he now views them as her property, or the fact that he seems to be under the impression that there will be a next time for this. 

“…you cannot eat people, Alucard,” she says, one hand on his nose, “the admiralty would have you killed.”

He snorts, sending a blast of air past her. “They could try. You cannot yet imagine the things that have failed to kill me, my dear Integra.”

She lifts her chin slightly; time to get firm. “Nevertheless, a maneating dragon is by definition a menace to the Crown, and the powers that be will not stand for it. Neither,” she adds, eyeing him sharply, “will I.”

“Oh but _captain_ ,” he wheedles, scythe claws sinking into the grassy earth the same way a cat kneads a soft cushion. “Cattle lack so much, when compared to human life. The flavor, the satisfaction, they are not simply a delicacy, they are… _sustenance incarnate_.”

Integra suppresses a faint shudder at this talk of the benefits of human consumption, and sharply smacks the snout nuzzling her. “None of that! I will not be throwing men to you to devour, no matter what it may cost me from you.” A risky thing to say; a disobedient dragon may be shot as easily as a maneating one.

Her beast simply looks at her for a long moment, unspeaking. It’s unseasonably chilly, and Integra had just thrown on a robe and coat and rushed out to scold in her slippers. Mist still clings to the shrubs surrounding the foundations of the house. It’s too damn early for this.

Finally Alucard speaks. “And what of your enemies, Master? This country is still at war, or is threatening war with other nations, or is about to collapse in on itself into war, or all three. Would you deny me the succor of hostile forces between my jaws?”

A sigh threatens to burst out of her, and she swallows it sternly. “I cannot promise you anything. I can barely promise you a place in the corps, much less freedom to maraud and commit what are probably war crimes. But,” she adds quickly, “I can at least promise to consider it. If you do prove to be as exceptional as you and my father’s journals say you are.” And if everything in those books is true, the admiralty will pay her commission through the nose.

Alucard exhales slowly, tail sweeping a huge swath of dew from the grass. “I will, of course, do as my captain commands.” Integra’s shoulders drop slightly, losing tension. He concedes, finally.

“How on earth did my forebearers handle you…” she muses, feeling the soft velvet of his muzzle, before the scales start in earnest. He laughs, a low rumbling chuckle that she feels through the soles of her slippers.

“With great difficulty. They did, after all, abandon me on a mountain.”

She stands there for a while more, then sits on the back of his offered talloned paw, to avoid the dampness of the ground. Alucard’s massive head rests beside her, and they watch the mist burn away in the morning light. After a while, Alucard yawns impressively, showing off every one of his monstrous teeth, and curls his head under his tail, shielding his nocturnal eyes from the strengthening sun.

Integra sighs softly, face grim; there was a scrap of fabric caught between two jagged molars, each the size of her head.

**Author's Note:**

> Shorter than I'd like, but with any luck this break in the dry spell will last long enough to get another of these on paper, something more interesting next time.


End file.
